Abstract
This work addresses the question of precisely what features of few body models of halo nuclei are probed by elastic scattering on protons at high center-of-mass energies. Our treatment is based on a multiple scattering expansion of the proton-projectile transition amplitude in a form which is well adapted to the weakly bound cluster picture of halo nuclei. In the specific case of scattering from protons at 800 MeV/nucleon we show that because core recoil effects are significant, scattering cross sections cannot, in general, be deduced from knowledge of the total matter density alone. We advocate that the optical potential concept for the scattering of halo nuclei on protons should be avoided and that the multiple scattering series for the full transition amplitude should be used instead.
- Received 28 January 1999
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.60.034007
©1999 American Physical Society